4 Simple Steps to Follow Through
Why you shouldn’t Underestimate Positivity
For the Second Time
Yes, I took a break. A long one. At first, I thought taking a break made me look weak and like I had no sense of direction. As time went by all my negative emotions started to fade away. During that time, I knew, as long as I felt fear and shame, I was not ready to begin blogging again. Along the way, I lost the motivations behind why I started to blog. I became laser-focused on making money and building my following–feeling like all my value came from that. It was getting me nowhere. Instead of finding peace in my writing I began to feel stressed and saw writing as something that I needed to do, instead of something I wanted to do. I felt like I needed to come up with content you all would like, instead of coming up with content that came from my heart.
If you go to the last piece I posted, “How to Encourage Change in Your Life,” I wrote about my anxiety and personal problems. When I wrote that post, I thought I was ready to keep posting. As it turns out, I wasn’t and I had to be okay with that. I had to continue my healing and evaluate everything all over again. Now, I feel ready and empowered to face any situation full on. I feel like I have taken back control of my life.
I’m not sure about you but I am very hard on myself. I feel the need to be strong and in control at all times. I was holding onto this mentality of showing no weaknesses, but that was only hurting myself. I was hiding who I was from others and I’ve decided that I want to be an open book. Literally! I want to be genuinely helpful and real. My posts are going to be based on my personal journals. I want to show you my journey as I build my businesses and my life. I am going to be vulnerable and show you not only the pretty, but the boring, the ugly, and so on. I want to show you that not everything is as it seems. All those people who seem to have their life together also had their own struggles and moments of hopelessness. Most of the time we don’t hear about these struggles until after they have accomplished their goals. I want to show you all of that. I want to show you that we don’t need to be terrified of the unknown. We can lift ourselves up and allow ourselves to be happy.
Positively Confident doesn’t mean you are happy all the time. Instead, a positively confident person is someone who has decided to push forward despite the bad days. Someone who finds inner-strength and beauty in their journey. Whether or not your thoughts are negative, they are not something to be ashamed of–they are to be learned from.
Our thoughts are important tools and now my thoughts are going to be exposed to you. I wish to share my stories in the hopes that you won’t feel alone and that you will stop thinking that something is wrong with you. Now, my thoughts may not always be pretty, and I know you might not always agree with me, but my hopes are that you will learn from your own thoughts and allow yourself to get real. I hope you will break free from whatever is keeping you from seeing yourself the way you want. Or you can just judge me. Whatever works for you my peeps.
Until next time.
Love, Evelyn.
A New Start
It has been roughly two months since I have written anything for Positively Confident. I haven’t posted anything and for a while I felt guilty. I felt like I was letting you and myself down. As the weeks went by I kept feeling like I had a bunch of extra time and I was forgetting about something. I found myself becoming less stressed and open to use this new free time as a way to realign myself with my mission and life goals. I realized a few months back that although I was not running out of ideas, I felt like I was writing and posting out of obligation. Whereas, when I started I was posting because I had a passion and I was on a mission to help other women grow; I wanted to help others love themselves as I had learned so myself.
So, I decided to take a break. I realized, I was doing things for the blog I didn’t want to do. This was a problem because the blog is still new, it has yet to blossom, and I was already feeling like this, so I can’t imagine what I would be doing later if I kept going down that path. I decided I needed to get back to my basics and find exactly what it was I liked to do and find ways to make the blog better.
So, for those of you who have been long time followers, you will see that the blog got a big makeover. I am happy with this because I hope it will reveal more about me and help you all become more positive and confident. I am hoping this change will give you all hope to know that you are still a work in progress–as am I. Our focus should not be on finding ourselves but rather creating who we want to be. Even though we may not see it now, every day we are growing and changing for the better.
I don’t want to hide from you, I want to let you know that I struggle as well. There are days when I feel hopeless, lost, and like I don’t deserve better things in my life. Sometimes, I feel downright ugly inside. I will also tell you that these feelings don’t last. I question them and I ask myself why I feel so negatively. What was it that triggered these things? As soon as I answer those questions, I move into action. I look at myself and see how far I have come and I find the things I love about myself, my life, and my family.
I want you to know all this because life isn’t perfect, and when you see me post things about myself and my family, I want you all to know that I am not better than you. My life is not perfect, but I am pretty damn proud of it. I am creating a life that I am proud of and so should you. We are all capable.
Let’s just say, this break from the blog and this big change has helped me shape the way I view myself and the way the blog is going to move forward. There are going to be amazing things coming and I hope that you will jump on this journey with me.
Please, please, please let me know what you want more of. Ask me questions and let me know what kind of posts you want more of.
Thanks for sticking around and for all you newbies, I hope you follow.
Love, Evelyn
Edited by Samantha McDonald
Is Positivity Really Worth the Effort
Everyone around us seems to say, almost like a habit—“just be positive about it and everything will turn out alright.” I’ve even said these words to family, friends, and myself. These are not wrong words to say, they just lack a certain reality. Just being positive about something doesn’t always guarantee that you or the situation will be alright. At the same time, positivity can help us become stronger and get through situations with a good attitude. It can help us be proud of ourselves when we overcome a situation with a good spirit.
Thinking positively will allow us to think of others and how our energy will affect them– it will allow us to look ourselves in the mirror and think, I am a better person for deciding to be clear minded instead of grouchy, angry and frustrated.
If we have a good, healthy understanding of being positive, we know that positivity doesn’t mean just putting a smile on your face and turning away all the negative emotions. It is about being in the moment and even if our world seems to feel like it is falling apart, being positive allows us to see the good. It allows us to feel hopeful and grateful. So, yes positivity is worth it. It is not overrated because the idea of being positive gives us a sense of relief. If we take a step back and decide to be positive, we have also decided that we want to be in control of how we view ourselves and our life. We have decided that it is better to go through a storm with hope, calmness, and determination rather than fear, worry, and regret.
Positive energy allows us to overcome many obstacles. If we are honest with ourselves and face our emotions, positivity gives us the extra fuel to keep moving forward with strength and hope.
You are in control of how you view yourself, so let it be beautiful.
Don’t forget to follow me here and on Instagram, @evelyne_positivelyconfident
Love, Evelyn.
Editor—Samantha McDonald
How can I get my Happiness?
So many different websites try to explain the different categories of life that should help create happiness– work, health, money, family, religion, your purpose, and even relationships. Happiness is a hard word to describe because it looks and feels different for everyone. I am no expert on happiness, but I do know I am happy. So, I am going to share how I created my little piece of happiness and how I have managed to hold onto it.
Happiness is important and it matters. It isn’t a luxury of some sort, it is something we can all experience. Just because you have reached your inner happiness does not mean you won’t face obstacles or sad moments. Living a happy life does not mean we deny any negative emotions or situations. We will still experience emotions like anger or frustration. This does not mean you are any less happy. These kind of responses are due to outside sources. Maybe someone acted negative toward you or a loved one passed away. These kind of moments are saddening but they are just moments; but I do not want to take away from the deep emotions we can experience when someone passes away or something traumatic happens in our life. My point is that achieving happiness can be so much more than just a moment. It is solely our responsibility to bring our happiness to light. Some ways to do this: change your perspective about where you may be and honestly reflect how you feel living your life. Eventually, we will have to start expressing what we want to feel. A good way to do this is to smile, reflect, and stop comparing yourself to other people. Reaching happiness is in your control.
Many of us already know what we need to do to make ourselves happy. We can feel it. It is just a matter of getting there. A few things that I have experienced that have helped are not obsessing about things I cannot control, getting enough sleep (most of the time), exercising, growing my mindset, helping others and clearing any of my clutter. This is what I have found helpful and I am sure many others have as well. Give it a try if you like. Do the things that help bring healthy pleasure and you will find yourself becoming more efficient, optimistic and emotionally intelligent.
When it comes to your emotional intelligence it is about you being in control and disciplining yourself to do what you must to achieve how you want to feel. So often people think success can bring happiness but that is not necessarily true. Happiness can actually be the key to success. When you are happy, there is this connection between you and the outside world. This strength and sense of optimism that no matter what circumstances will come your way, you will keep on believing in yourself and enjoy your journey.
Happiness is contagious. Don’t be afraid to spread it around because you can end up helping someone become closer to feeling what it means to be happy.
You are in control of how you view yourself, so let it beautiful.
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram & Positively Confident for more updates.
Love, Evelyn
Editor, Samantha McDonald
The Pain of Rejection
So many of us want to feel that we are better and stronger than any negative emotions that we may encounter on a day to day basis. We allow ourselves to become angry or frustrated and then we quickly allow ourselves to brush the situation out of mind. We may say to ourselves, whatever, I don’t need this. This tends to happen often when we have been rejected. The most painful part about being rejected is that we can’t really do anything about it– all we can do is control our attitude and protect our confidence. When we face rejection, we have options. We can give up, or keep trying until we find a way to succeed. So, here I have listed 3 simple way to push through any form of rejection!
1. Don’t push the emotion aside! It is important to understand yourself and we can grow an understanding by working through the negative emotions. If you push aside the emotions, they are not completely gone. Instead of being able to push forward at full speed, you are now being hindered by this mental and emotional weight. Face your emotions, you will become stronger for it.
2. Remind yourself of your goals and dreams! There is a cause for your rejection– you asked for something and you were denied. So, even though we may not like the answer, it is up to you to accept defeat or remind yourself of what you want and why.
3. Give yourself pep talks every day! What can make rejection so painful is that it can hinder our confidence and that is the last thing we want to happen. So, we need to list things that we like about ourselves. What are you good at doing? What do you want to be good at doing? Say positive, reassuring phrases to yourself. So, an example would be: I am Evelyn, I am beautiful inside and out. I am strong and I will conquer any obstacles that get in my way. I will keep working on myself to reach my goals because I know I deserve whatever I put my mind to. Create your own and tell yourself encouraging words every day because it does make a difference.
Rejection is something not to be afraid of. Rejection is not something new and it will continue to happen to each of us. Regardless, we can become strong enough to work through it and have it bounce off us. We can become strong!
If you like, leave some comments about how you have pushed though rejection. Don’t forget to follow for more updates!
Love, Evelyn.
Edited by Samantha McDonald
